FIC: "Holding on to a lie," Part 11/? (Colby/Charlie, David, Larry, Amita, PG-13)
Title: "Face to face"
Series: Holding on to a lie, Part 11/?
Characters: Colby/Charlie, David, Larry, Amita.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Summary: David freaks out when he sees someone he'd rather forget.
Feedback: I love feedback. Every comment is a cup of coffee that keeps me posting. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it. But I do own the original aspects and any OCs.
Beta: The always amazing irena_adler.
Previous chapter: Part 10/? - "The witnesses" (Charlie/Colby, Amita/OMC, R)
Holding on to a lie
Part 11: “Face to face”
As Don had to take care of his FBI duties for some hours, Charlie had stayed at home, looking after his father. As a result, and as it had been planned earlier that morning, Colby was the one to bring the cold pills to CalSci in order to ask Larry to test them as soon as possible.
He found the physicist at Charlie’s office, writing on the blackboard. However, the equations seemed to be pure scribblings, as several parts of the calculations were smudged.
Larry was staring at them with a preoccupied expression, his palms on both sides of his face, his fingers tapping his cheeks slowly.
“Larry,” Colby said when he was behind him, because the other man didn’t seem to have noticed his present at the office. As a response, Larry jumped in his place, looking absolutely freaked out.
When he turned around and saw Colby, he rested a hand on his own chest, breathing heavily. “Oh, Agent Granger… my heart is pounding from your sudden appearance.”
“Sorry that I scared you…”
“Ahh…”
“Are you ok?” Colby asked, because Larry seemed to be hyperventilating. “Why don’t you sit down?” He insisted the physicist to sit in a chair, and he finally accepted. Colby saw him take deep breaths, like he was trying to calm down and take his breathing to normal rhythm.
“This is what… getting into the civilized… modern, rushed world… does to the ones… who have found peace… in the silence… of a sacred monastery,” Larry mumbled.
Now Colby took a file from Charlie’s desk and started to wave it in Larry’s direction to give him some more air. “I see. Um… Larry…”
“Yeah?”
“Alan… He’s not ok.”
“What?” Larry seemed to be genuinely worried. His eyes were fixed on Colby’s while he waited for the news.
“He fainted last night.”
“He fain-”
“Yeah.”
Larry’s consternated face said it all. And yet, he got up and went towards the door.
“Larry, wait, please,” Colby asked him before he left the office, probably to go to the Eppes residence. “I need to ask you a favor.” He took out the bottle of pills. “This is Alan’s medication. He’s been taking it for two weeks, but he seems to be getting worse. Amita says she bought it at a naturist shop and that these are trust-worthy, but just in case, we want to know what kind of substances it has.” Now he handed the pills to Larry, who started to read the labels it had. “The FBI lab has too much work, and we need…”
“Give me a couple of hours,” Larry muttered, and he left the room, not letting Colby finish his request.
In fact, Colby saw him start running as he kept reading the labels of the medication. “Thanks, Larry!” he yelled at him.
“Yeah, yeah!” the physicist yelled back as he disappeared at the end of the corridor. “I’ll take the results to Charles’ house!”
Colby laughed, shaking his head. He might be weird, but he’s a good man. He turned around, ready to return to the FBI for a couple of hours, when he saw David coming towards him. “Hey, man.”
“Hey,” David muttered, and he went into Charlie’s office. Then he turned to Colby. “Do you happen to know where Larry is? We kind of need him to give us a hand. We don’t want to bother Charlie right now, with everything that’s going on.”
It was obvious that Don had told the rest of team the news about his family. It was nice to know that everybody was helping Charlie, too. “Thanks for your support, David.”
“Don’t even mention it, it’s ok. We’re friends.” Acting a little awkwardly, David patted Colby’s shoulder, and then he went silent.
As the situation was getting uncomfortable, Colby had to say something to get over it. “Speaking of friends and problems, were you able to fix that issue you had?”
The answer didn’t come right away. All of a sudden, David looked like he had seen something or someone who really scared him.
“Amita, hi,” Colby muttered when he turned around and saw her stumble because of carrying a very heavy pile of books. When she tried to reply, all of them fell to the floor. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”
It was all about being gentle. Maybe Amita was acting weird, and maybe Charlie had had the feeling that she wanted him back, just like he had told Colby the night before; but she was still a wounded should that needed everybody’s help to get her life back to normal again.
While he helped her to pick up her books, he thought about the conversation he had had with Charlie that morning about that issue.
Colby had slept on the couch, and when he had woken up, there it had been Charlie offering him a cup of coffee.
“I had to make some more for Don, so he could drive to the FBI,” the mathematician said, sitting on the coffee table in front of Colby.
“Did you get some sleep?”
“Yeah. Don took care of my Dad while I rested for a couple of hours, since he fell asleep very early, remember? I’m still so tired, though…”
Sleepy as he was, Colby could see that his lover was carefully dressed. “Well, I couldn’t tell. You look nice.”
“Oh, I do, don’t I?” Charlie said, as he leaned and kissed the other man sweetly. “I think someone’s still thankful for last night.”
Surprise by that comment, Colby felt himself blushing, and rubbed the back of his head. “Um… weren’t you the one who were saying ‘thanks’?”
The next thing he knew, Charlie was laughing very close to his mouth, and then kissing him again. “Maybe, since you’re so good to me… But who’s counting, anyway?”
When Colby broke the next kiss, he muttered, “Maybe Amita.”
“Colby…”
“Why did she come here last night? Because she wanted your attention. I don’t like that she’s hovering around us, around you, like she’s judging us all the time or something.” Colby took a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t know. There’s something about her I can’t quite figure out, you know, besides the David conflict and all, and at the same time, I know that I’m supposed to help her because she’s so damaged.”
Charlie immediately kissed him on the cheek. Colby melted at the gesture; he was suddenly out of words.
Charlie said, “You worry about nothing. And I do believe that there’s something weird about her now, but I know when and how to draw the line.”
“You do?” Colby snapped, because Charlie wasn’t exactly the kind of person who knew how to read people or how to handle stressful situations. Just looking back, a few weeks ago they were having fight after fight because Charlie couldn’t decide whether he wanted to give their relationship a try or not.
“Yes, I do. I know that maybe you won’t believe me, but I felt that she was making a move on me when she hugged me before you came home again last night…”
“She hugged you?”
Charlie nodded and continued, “But I drew the line. I told her that she couldn’t do that, that I’m with you now, and…”
“And…?”
“And she got all angry and left,” the mathematician concluded.
“Oh.” After hearing the story, there was something that Colby needed to ask. “Are you worried about that?”
“I was, but… she has to understand that things have changed. Besides, I know her, I’m sure that she’s just confused about this whole situation which must be still weird for her. She just needs to find her way out of the mess Patrick Garner brought into her life.”
“Mmhm,” Colby muttered as he looked into his lover’s eyes in silence.
“What?”
Slowly, Colby simply reached for him and kissed him tenderly. Charlie responded, until Alan’s voice came from upstairs.
“Charlie?”
“I’m coming, Dad!” Charlie yelled as he got up. However, he quickly returned to Colby, kissed him one more time and finally he did walk up the stairs, smiling. Colby smiled as he turned to the cup of coffee his lover had left on the coffee table and he drank it in little sips as he thought that maybe Charlie was changing because of him.
As he picked up the last books, Colby lifted his gaze towards Amita. She was looking up, her eyes obviously fixed on David, who hadn’t move from the place behind his partner.
“Hello, David,” she finally said, with a sweet, lovely tone of voice.
There was silence from David. And he passed by Colby, leaving him and Amita behind.
“David? David!” Colby yelled, and he went towards his friend. He put a hand on his shoulder, but his partner rejected him and shook his head.
“Leave me alone!”
Colby didn’t want to do it, but when he turned to Amita and saw her innocent, delicate face, he couldn’t take it anymore. “What did you do?”
“What?” she muttered with a surprised expression, like she didn’t understand the question.
So Colby had to make it clear. As he went towards her, he repeated, “What did you do to David?”
She tried to defend herself. “Me? What are you talking about?”
Her voice sounded really offended by Colby’s question, but he got the strange, disturbing feeling that she was lying, just like he thought she was trying to get Charlie’s attention at the house last night. “Amita, I know that you did something to him, you better tell me!”
“That’s crazy, you can’t accuse me of-”
That was it. Colby grabbed her arms; he could feel how she tightened the grip on her books. But he didn’t care about whether he was making a scandal in the middle of the university, he didn’t care about the students that were looking at him right in that moment. All he cared about what his best friend. “Don’t you lie to me! Tell me what the hell you did to him!”
Someone approached them to control the situation. “Do we have a problem, here?” another professor said, and when Colby realized that he had almost lost control over himself, he let Amita go. He walked down the corridors, feeling everybody’s eyes on his back, but all he could think about was helping David.
He found his partner outside, about to get into his car. “David, wait!” he called him, and he got to grab David’s arm just before he got into the vehicle.
“I said ‘leave me alone’.”
“I can’t leave you alone when you react like this. I did it before, and it certainly didn’t work, did it? You didn’t fix that problem you have, the one Amita caused!”
“So what? It’s none of your business!”
“‘It’s none of your business’?” Colby repeated. “Of course it is, David, you’re my partner and my friend!” He shook his head. “God, if you’d just tell me what she did…”
“No. Forget it, I already told you that I could deal with it.”
“Yeah, how? Leaving every time she comes around?”
“Don’t you dare judge me,” David warned him.
“I’m not judging you, man, I just want to help you!” the other man yelled, waving his hands in the air. “Tell me what to do! You can trust me!”
David shook his head and tried to get into the car, but Colby grabbed his arm, firmly this time, wanting to make him stay. “David, talk to m-!”
A fist punched him hard in the face, right at his jaw. He felt dizzy, stumbled backwards and finally landed on the floor.
When he could open his eyes, he saw David standing in from of him. He was the one who had punched him, and it was unbelievable. But Colby’s partner was there, trembling from head to feet, looking at him like he regretted what he had just done.
Yet, David said something before leaving. “You can’t fix everything, Colby. You just can’t, and you gotta learn to live with that.” Then he got into his car and drove away.
The taste of blood hit Colby’s system, making him become aware of the pain he felt in his jaw. When he touched the corner of his mouth, there it was the blood he had expected.
It was a sunny afternoon, and he was lying on the floor, students around him whispering theories about the fight they had seen. And David had left him there; he had run away from Amita in his car as fast as he could, like she was some kind of personal demon who knew his darkest secret.
Series: Holding on to a lie, Part 11/?
Characters: Colby/Charlie, David, Larry, Amita.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Summary: David freaks out when he sees someone he'd rather forget.
Feedback: I love feedback. Every comment is a cup of coffee that keeps me posting. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it. But I do own the original aspects and any OCs.
Beta: The always amazing irena_adler.
Previous chapter: Part 10/? - "The witnesses" (Charlie/Colby, Amita/OMC, R)
Holding on to a lie
Part 11: “Face to face”
As Don had to take care of his FBI duties for some hours, Charlie had stayed at home, looking after his father. As a result, and as it had been planned earlier that morning, Colby was the one to bring the cold pills to CalSci in order to ask Larry to test them as soon as possible.
He found the physicist at Charlie’s office, writing on the blackboard. However, the equations seemed to be pure scribblings, as several parts of the calculations were smudged.
Larry was staring at them with a preoccupied expression, his palms on both sides of his face, his fingers tapping his cheeks slowly.
“Larry,” Colby said when he was behind him, because the other man didn’t seem to have noticed his present at the office. As a response, Larry jumped in his place, looking absolutely freaked out.
When he turned around and saw Colby, he rested a hand on his own chest, breathing heavily. “Oh, Agent Granger… my heart is pounding from your sudden appearance.”
“Sorry that I scared you…”
“Ahh…”
“Are you ok?” Colby asked, because Larry seemed to be hyperventilating. “Why don’t you sit down?” He insisted the physicist to sit in a chair, and he finally accepted. Colby saw him take deep breaths, like he was trying to calm down and take his breathing to normal rhythm.
“This is what… getting into the civilized… modern, rushed world… does to the ones… who have found peace… in the silence… of a sacred monastery,” Larry mumbled.
Now Colby took a file from Charlie’s desk and started to wave it in Larry’s direction to give him some more air. “I see. Um… Larry…”
“Yeah?”
“Alan… He’s not ok.”
“What?” Larry seemed to be genuinely worried. His eyes were fixed on Colby’s while he waited for the news.
“He fainted last night.”
“He fain-”
“Yeah.”
Larry’s consternated face said it all. And yet, he got up and went towards the door.
“Larry, wait, please,” Colby asked him before he left the office, probably to go to the Eppes residence. “I need to ask you a favor.” He took out the bottle of pills. “This is Alan’s medication. He’s been taking it for two weeks, but he seems to be getting worse. Amita says she bought it at a naturist shop and that these are trust-worthy, but just in case, we want to know what kind of substances it has.” Now he handed the pills to Larry, who started to read the labels it had. “The FBI lab has too much work, and we need…”
“Give me a couple of hours,” Larry muttered, and he left the room, not letting Colby finish his request.
In fact, Colby saw him start running as he kept reading the labels of the medication. “Thanks, Larry!” he yelled at him.
“Yeah, yeah!” the physicist yelled back as he disappeared at the end of the corridor. “I’ll take the results to Charles’ house!”
Colby laughed, shaking his head. He might be weird, but he’s a good man. He turned around, ready to return to the FBI for a couple of hours, when he saw David coming towards him. “Hey, man.”
“Hey,” David muttered, and he went into Charlie’s office. Then he turned to Colby. “Do you happen to know where Larry is? We kind of need him to give us a hand. We don’t want to bother Charlie right now, with everything that’s going on.”
It was obvious that Don had told the rest of team the news about his family. It was nice to know that everybody was helping Charlie, too. “Thanks for your support, David.”
“Don’t even mention it, it’s ok. We’re friends.” Acting a little awkwardly, David patted Colby’s shoulder, and then he went silent.
As the situation was getting uncomfortable, Colby had to say something to get over it. “Speaking of friends and problems, were you able to fix that issue you had?”
The answer didn’t come right away. All of a sudden, David looked like he had seen something or someone who really scared him.
“Amita, hi,” Colby muttered when he turned around and saw her stumble because of carrying a very heavy pile of books. When she tried to reply, all of them fell to the floor. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”
It was all about being gentle. Maybe Amita was acting weird, and maybe Charlie had had the feeling that she wanted him back, just like he had told Colby the night before; but she was still a wounded should that needed everybody’s help to get her life back to normal again.
While he helped her to pick up her books, he thought about the conversation he had had with Charlie that morning about that issue.
Colby had slept on the couch, and when he had woken up, there it had been Charlie offering him a cup of coffee.
“I had to make some more for Don, so he could drive to the FBI,” the mathematician said, sitting on the coffee table in front of Colby.
“Did you get some sleep?”
“Yeah. Don took care of my Dad while I rested for a couple of hours, since he fell asleep very early, remember? I’m still so tired, though…”
Sleepy as he was, Colby could see that his lover was carefully dressed. “Well, I couldn’t tell. You look nice.”
“Oh, I do, don’t I?” Charlie said, as he leaned and kissed the other man sweetly. “I think someone’s still thankful for last night.”
Surprise by that comment, Colby felt himself blushing, and rubbed the back of his head. “Um… weren’t you the one who were saying ‘thanks’?”
The next thing he knew, Charlie was laughing very close to his mouth, and then kissing him again. “Maybe, since you’re so good to me… But who’s counting, anyway?”
When Colby broke the next kiss, he muttered, “Maybe Amita.”
“Colby…”
“Why did she come here last night? Because she wanted your attention. I don’t like that she’s hovering around us, around you, like she’s judging us all the time or something.” Colby took a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t know. There’s something about her I can’t quite figure out, you know, besides the David conflict and all, and at the same time, I know that I’m supposed to help her because she’s so damaged.”
Charlie immediately kissed him on the cheek. Colby melted at the gesture; he was suddenly out of words.
Charlie said, “You worry about nothing. And I do believe that there’s something weird about her now, but I know when and how to draw the line.”
“You do?” Colby snapped, because Charlie wasn’t exactly the kind of person who knew how to read people or how to handle stressful situations. Just looking back, a few weeks ago they were having fight after fight because Charlie couldn’t decide whether he wanted to give their relationship a try or not.
“Yes, I do. I know that maybe you won’t believe me, but I felt that she was making a move on me when she hugged me before you came home again last night…”
“She hugged you?”
Charlie nodded and continued, “But I drew the line. I told her that she couldn’t do that, that I’m with you now, and…”
“And…?”
“And she got all angry and left,” the mathematician concluded.
“Oh.” After hearing the story, there was something that Colby needed to ask. “Are you worried about that?”
“I was, but… she has to understand that things have changed. Besides, I know her, I’m sure that she’s just confused about this whole situation which must be still weird for her. She just needs to find her way out of the mess Patrick Garner brought into her life.”
“Mmhm,” Colby muttered as he looked into his lover’s eyes in silence.
“What?”
Slowly, Colby simply reached for him and kissed him tenderly. Charlie responded, until Alan’s voice came from upstairs.
“Charlie?”
“I’m coming, Dad!” Charlie yelled as he got up. However, he quickly returned to Colby, kissed him one more time and finally he did walk up the stairs, smiling. Colby smiled as he turned to the cup of coffee his lover had left on the coffee table and he drank it in little sips as he thought that maybe Charlie was changing because of him.
As he picked up the last books, Colby lifted his gaze towards Amita. She was looking up, her eyes obviously fixed on David, who hadn’t move from the place behind his partner.
“Hello, David,” she finally said, with a sweet, lovely tone of voice.
There was silence from David. And he passed by Colby, leaving him and Amita behind.
“David? David!” Colby yelled, and he went towards his friend. He put a hand on his shoulder, but his partner rejected him and shook his head.
“Leave me alone!”
Colby didn’t want to do it, but when he turned to Amita and saw her innocent, delicate face, he couldn’t take it anymore. “What did you do?”
“What?” she muttered with a surprised expression, like she didn’t understand the question.
So Colby had to make it clear. As he went towards her, he repeated, “What did you do to David?”
She tried to defend herself. “Me? What are you talking about?”
Her voice sounded really offended by Colby’s question, but he got the strange, disturbing feeling that she was lying, just like he thought she was trying to get Charlie’s attention at the house last night. “Amita, I know that you did something to him, you better tell me!”
“That’s crazy, you can’t accuse me of-”
That was it. Colby grabbed her arms; he could feel how she tightened the grip on her books. But he didn’t care about whether he was making a scandal in the middle of the university, he didn’t care about the students that were looking at him right in that moment. All he cared about what his best friend. “Don’t you lie to me! Tell me what the hell you did to him!”
Someone approached them to control the situation. “Do we have a problem, here?” another professor said, and when Colby realized that he had almost lost control over himself, he let Amita go. He walked down the corridors, feeling everybody’s eyes on his back, but all he could think about was helping David.
He found his partner outside, about to get into his car. “David, wait!” he called him, and he got to grab David’s arm just before he got into the vehicle.
“I said ‘leave me alone’.”
“I can’t leave you alone when you react like this. I did it before, and it certainly didn’t work, did it? You didn’t fix that problem you have, the one Amita caused!”
“So what? It’s none of your business!”
“‘It’s none of your business’?” Colby repeated. “Of course it is, David, you’re my partner and my friend!” He shook his head. “God, if you’d just tell me what she did…”
“No. Forget it, I already told you that I could deal with it.”
“Yeah, how? Leaving every time she comes around?”
“Don’t you dare judge me,” David warned him.
“I’m not judging you, man, I just want to help you!” the other man yelled, waving his hands in the air. “Tell me what to do! You can trust me!”
David shook his head and tried to get into the car, but Colby grabbed his arm, firmly this time, wanting to make him stay. “David, talk to m-!”
A fist punched him hard in the face, right at his jaw. He felt dizzy, stumbled backwards and finally landed on the floor.
When he could open his eyes, he saw David standing in from of him. He was the one who had punched him, and it was unbelievable. But Colby’s partner was there, trembling from head to feet, looking at him like he regretted what he had just done.
Yet, David said something before leaving. “You can’t fix everything, Colby. You just can’t, and you gotta learn to live with that.” Then he got into his car and drove away.
The taste of blood hit Colby’s system, making him become aware of the pain he felt in his jaw. When he touched the corner of his mouth, there it was the blood he had expected.
It was a sunny afternoon, and he was lying on the floor, students around him whispering theories about the fight they had seen. And David had left him there; he had run away from Amita in his car as fast as he could, like she was some kind of personal demon who knew his darkest secret.